Death made me a blade.
Rhiannon raised her arm against the storm. It wasn’t enough; the rain cut through her thin linen shirt. It soon turned ragged, as did her pants. She didn’t yet know… linen and skin were no match for acid.
Not against acid like this.
The rain buffeted her, chewing her skin, drawing more blood. And yet she kept her sword raised high.
A pulse of fresh sympathy went through me. And with it, something else; it felt like power. “Yield, Rhiannon.”
“Yield?” Her black eye snapped to mine, framed by the line of her forearm. That single eye was wide, almost childlike—edged with fear. “Then I’m nothing.” Her voice sounded like broken marbles inside a can.
Rhiannon, the forgotten daughter. The night-killer. The grasping fae who’d gotten her hands on the Sylvanwild diadem through the spilled blood of her sisters.
A queen, or nothing at all.
She tightened her throat, then lowered her arm until her bloody face was uncovered. The acid had eaten away at her left cheek until the bone was exposed. Her sword extended toward me—a final challenge.
I took a hobbling step toward her. My sword rose, and our two blades met with a metallic clink. Her blood ran down the grip of her sword to the blade. And I could not help it: I looked into her Unseelie-corrupted eye and I respected her. She fought like a fucking banshee.
Her throat worked. Finally, she rasped, “You will never be accepted, changeling.”
She swung. The wind kicked up. She screamed, the blade arced high. I raised my sword to block. Iron met iron?—
And then shecollapsed.
She dropped onto her back. Her sword fell from her hand, and her fingers clenched. Every muscle seemed to spasm, and she curled in on herself in the meadow as Unseelie magic spread over what remained of her body.
I knew what would happen next.
I dropped down next to her. Her eyes stared up at me, dark as pitch, her lips in a wide grimace. I wondered if she saw the faces of her four sisters. Her parents, who’d died of broken hearts. Did she think of them, or only of Rhiannon?
I knew what I had to do; I didn’t hesitate. Hesitation was a bastard’s way. It wasn’t real compassion.
I lifted my sword, set the edge of it to her throat, and slit it.
Remember death.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Rhiannon diedas she had lived. Quickly, with her eyes open.
The wind settled. The rain slowed.
I dropped into the grass next to the dead queen. I fell exactly as gravity carried me, straight onto my side with a view of her unmoving body. The blood seeping out of her neck was black. But she was not a wraith—she had not become one of them.
My eyes closed as the acid rain fell on me, and though I fought against it, I slipped into a tortured unconsciousness.
Pain. I dreamed of pain.
I was back in the Kingdom of Storms. One of the night guard was digging his fingers into my shoulder, twisting two of them and laughing. Another drew the edge of his blade along my thigh, back and forth until he was sawing my femur. I screamed, but my voice was muted; they didn’t stop.
Nothing stopped the pain. Not until they carried me to the old well and dropped me into it. I hit the water hard, and it was like ice.
I screamed again. My eyes opened?—
“Eury, it’s okay.” Hands were on me. They held me shoulder-high in a pond, where all but my head was submerged. “Please, don’t fight.”
My eyes darted. It was still nighttime, and the moon was back out. I glimpsed a face above me, the profile lit in silver.
